Tuesday Tip: Should you avoid ultra-processed foods?

Tuesday Tip: Should you avoid ultra-processed foods? 🍪

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are vilified across social media at the moment. Eating things like a biscuit or packet of crisps is touted as akin to smoking. So do you need to avoid them like the plague? Probably not!

UPFs encompass a huge range of foods from sweets, crisps and sugary drinks to wholegrain breakfast cereals, fortified plant milks, baked beans, protein yoghurts and even some wholemeal breads. Basically anything that contains ‘industrial ingredients’ you wouldn’t n find in a typical kitchen and often also hyper palatable. However

lumping them all together doesn’t tell us much about how nutritious they are.

What matters most is your overall diet. If most of your meals are based around vegetables, fruit, wholegrains, beans, quality protein and healthy fats, then having the occasional biscuit, ice cream or ready meal isn’t suddenly going to undo destroy your health.

Equally, if your diet is made up mostly of highly processed foods that are high in calories and low in nutrients, that’s a different story. It’s the overall pattern that counts, not one individual food.

Context matters too. A protein yoghurt might technically be classed as ultra-processed, but it’s very different nutritionally from a packet of biscuits. Looking at protein, fibre, vitamins, minerals and overall nutritional value is far more useful than simply asking, ‘Is it a UPF?’.

In fact even things like olive oil are technically ultra-processed so it’s a silly blanket term to use really.

Rather than fearing foods because of a label, focus on the bigger picture. Build most of your diet around minimally processed foods, enjoy processed foods you enjoy without guilt, and remember that consistency beats perfection every time.

Healthy eating isn’t about avoiding one category of food. It’s about creating habits you can actually stick to.

Happy Tuesday 🤗

Xx